Emma Seiler

“ But it is this very indefiniteness that enables music so to insinuate itself into the soul of the hearer that the tones heard seem to be the expression of his own feelings, and not those of another. Hence it is that music, in its whole nature, acts beneficently and soothingly, because its ruling principle is always a striving after repose, after a rest in consonances, just as this is the innermost aim and struggle of our own life. ”

“ Purity in the art of singing is, however, such a primal condition of its beauty, that a piece of music purely executed, even by a weak and slightly-cultivated voice, always sounds agreeably, while the most sonorous and practised voice offends the hearer when it is out of tune or forced upwards. The training of our singers by pianos, as they are now tuned, by equal temperament, is altogether unsatisfactory. The singer who practises with the piano has no safe principle by which he can measure the height of his tones with any exactness. ”

“ But it is not only through the direct effect of tones, as it appears to me, but more through the life (Belebung) which animates it, that music comes so close to us, and is so natural and near of kin to us. That must needs be the most interior of the arts whose office it is to express the various moods of the human soul in their tenderest and most secret fluctuations. ”

“ In order to bring the external world to our consciousness, we are provided with various organs of sense; and as the eye is sensible to the light, the ear is sensible to sound, which comes to our consciousness either as noise (Geräusch) or as tone (Klang) . The whistling of the wind, the plashing of water, the rattling of a wagon are noises, but musical instruments give us tones. When, however, many untuned instruments sound together, or when all the keys within an octave are struck on the same time, then it is a noise that we hear. Tones are therefore more simple and regular than noises. ”

“ To me it appears as the natural consequence of the whole manner and way in which the art of singing has been historically developed since its earlier high state of perfection.
The human voice is, of all instruments, the most natural, the most perfect, the most intimate in its relation to us, as, for the use of it, we have a talent or faculty innate, which, in the case of other instruments, can only be laboriously acquired, to say nothing of the fact that these instruments are first to be invented and put together. ”

“ In order to reach such a height, and to be able to act upon the souls of men with an elevating and informing power, it is first of all necessary that an artist should cultivate the form, or the technique, of his art to its greatest possible perfection, and have such perfect command of it, that the practical application of it is as natural to him as to breathe. For empty and dead as all technical knowledge is unless it is animated with a soul, yet no product of art æsthetically beautiful is possible without a perfect technique. ”

“ Because all that Beethoven produced was grand and beautiful, he has been blindly imitated, and it has been wholly forgotten that music has in all times drawn its best nourishment from song, and only by means of song has it risen to its high estate, and that instruments can never reach what is possible to a thoroughly educated human voice.
A musician, exclusively devoted to the piano, never dreams of writing a concert piece for the violin, because he knows that he is not sufficiently acquainted with the peculiarities of that instrument ”

“ Music, above all the other arts, finds the earliest and most universal recognition, and almost every one listens to it with pleasure. Helmholtz says that music is much more intimately related to our sensations than all the other arts put together. Tones touch the ear and are instantly felt to be agreeable or disagreeable, while the impressions of painting, poetry, &c., upon our senses must be brought to our consciousness, and be judged of there by comparison. ”

“ An artist can be formed only by his own intelligence and practice, under the direct guidance of a master. But here, more than in any other art, the constant watchfulness of a teacher is a necessity. For, as one gets only an imperfect idea of his own personal appearance from a mirror, so the singer and dramatic artist can form but a partial judgment of his own performances. ”

“ To discover and establish the natural laws which lie at the basis of all our forms of art is the office of science; to fashion and control these forms and animate them with a soul is the task of art. In singing, the art consists in tones beautiful and sonorous, and fitted for the expression of every variation of feeling. To set forth the natural laws by which these tones are produced is the business of physiology and physics. ”

“ As a sense of the divine dwells in every nation, in every human being, and is impelled to form for itself a religious cultus, so we find among all nations the need of music dwelling as deeply in human nature. The most uncivilized tribes celebrate their festivals with songs as the expression of their devotion or joy, and the cultivated nations of ancient times, like the Greeks, cherished music as the ethereal vehicle of their poetry, and regarded it as the chief aid in the culture of the soul. ”

“ The pleasure which we take in any work of art, which, however faultless in certain respects, shows any glaring defect, is greatly abridged. The ugly spot will absorb our attention and destroy the pure enjoyment of its beauty, and still more disagreeable will be the effect if the different parts, otherwise beautifully shaped, are thrown out of their due symmetry and proportion. ”

“ When, in rare cases, the greatest passion is to be expressed, to endeavor to deepen the expression by a trembling of the notes is all very well and fully to be justified, but in songs and arias, in which quiet and elevated sentiments are to be expressed, to tremble as if the whole soul were in an uproar, and not at all in a condition for quiet singing, is unnatural and offensive. ”

“ But science has already done much to assist the formation of musical forms of art. Mathematics and physics have established the principal laws of sound and the processes of sound, in accordance with which our musical instruments are now constructed. Philosophical inquirers have succeeded also in discovering the eternal and impregnable laws of Nature upon which the mutual influences of melody, harmony and rhythm depend, and in thus giving to composition fixed forms and laws which no one ventures to question. ”

“ But while in poetry the structure of verse serves only to reduce to artistic order the external accidents of expression by language, rhythm is not only the external measure of time in music, but it belongs to the innermost nature of its power of expression, giving to music its distinctive character. There is, therefore, a finer and much more various culture of rhythm necessary in music than in poetry. ”

“ It has always been attempted to extend the boundaries of music by calling in the assistance of painting and poetry. Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, etc., have imitated in their compositions the singing of birds, the rippling of water, storms, &c. And now our modern musicians of the future endeavor to express in tones definite thoughts and feelings, imagining that here a new epoch in art is to open. But these new compositions always require elaborate explanations. Music until now, at least, has not yet given up its ethereal, indefinite character. ”

“ As soon as the technical education has advanced so far that it no longer makes any demand upon the attention of the learner, the infusion of life and soul into the singing must be begun. The teacher must then be so filled with the spirit of his art that he shall be able so to inspire his pupils that, forgetting themselves, they may be absorbed in the high ideal work of their art, and regard their well-trained voices simply as expressing the noblest and most varied sentiments (Stimmungen) . ”

“ In the successive arts, as music, the dramatic art, &c., proportion (Maassvolle) is an essential condition of beauty, more than in the simultaneous arts; and an artist whose technique is altogether perfect, and who can succeed in reproducing every emotion of the mind in his work, is a true artist only when he never transgresses by an excess of passion the fine boundary lines of beauty. ”

“ A perfect culture of the voice is scarcely any longer expected of an artist. People with a very scanty musical education and voices very poorly trained are regarded as artists if they execute their parts with expression, and trick them out with those clap-traps which never fail to command the applause of the ordinary public. ”

“ To any teacher who can sing at all, or play on any instrument, the tender voices of children are entrusted, and he allows them to sing together in chorus, satisfied if the tones are not grossly false and the time is kept, paying no regard to the formation of the voice. Now it is well known that even practised singers avoid singing much in chorus, considering it injurious to the voice. Although schooled and educated voices can endure a much greater strain than children’s voices, yet children are often, without any understanding, required to sing loud, in order “to bring out the voice.” ”

“ In so far as music is to represent the most secret life of the soul, and as in art everything natural, so far as it admits of being idealized and represented, is allowable, this tendency of art in music has its justification. But here, as in everything in which the principles of beauty are concerned, the true limit must not be overstepped. The old masters composed only in consonances, and Helmholtz has shown scientifically that consonances alone have an independent right to existence. ”

“ In the classic Italian style the form predominates—in the German, the inspiration or soul of the composition. In the Italian the music and the singing capability of the composition are attended to almost exclusively. In the German, the main thing is the poetical expression of the signification of the words. When we now sing the wonderful and exquisite compositions of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc., we soon feel the impossibility of giving one or another tone as beautifully as it should be given according to the quality of the voice, and as we are able to give it by itself. ”